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  1. #1
    Join Date
    Apr 2020
    Location
    Penrith
    Posts
    2

    Default New to wood carving

    Hi all,

    I am new to the world carving and looking to get into my own projects. I have started to collect tools such as knives and gouges for carving but need some help and tips in regards to what wood to carve.

    I am located in Penrith, NSW which is on the border of the Blue Mountains, so I have an abundance of trees around me.

    Does anyone know the best type of wood to carve from or what I should be looking for?

    Any tips would be much appreciated!

    Alec

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  3. #2
    Join Date
    Feb 2012
    Location
    Denmark, WA
    Age
    66
    Posts
    174

    Default

    Hi Alec
    I can't offer any NSW specific timber advice, but it may well be easier to find a timber seller close to you and ask what they have that is suitable. Hopefully someone in your area can be more helpful. Good luck with the carving. It is an incredibly rewarding (if sometimes challenging) pastime.
    Philip.

  4. #3
    Join Date
    May 2003
    Location
    Central Coast, NSW
    Posts
    3,330

    Default

    My opinion is get some Jelutong. It’s an extremely soft timber with a straight, regular grain. There are two thing to understand about learning to carve:

    1. The basic skills needed to carve are exactly the same if you are using a hard or a soft timber. We are talking about skills like how to hold a gouge, the 5 basic knife cuts, sharpening tools, how to progress from rough forming to detail work, how to visualise in 3d, understanding what designs work and why etc. So make it easy for yourself and get a timber that is easy to carve so you enjoy the experience and can focus on technique.

    2. Most local timbers are excessively hard, difficult and time consuming to carve. If you start your carving using a local eucalyptus species I can almost guarantee you’ll get fed up and your interest won’t last long.

    I know this because I once belonged to a carving club and we met each week, and almost every week a newcomer turned up and was given a piece of hard, tough wood to carve (to my immense frustration, but I didn’t interfere) as well as some basic instruction. I never once saw one of those beginners come back a second time.

    Other options are white beech and basswood/lime wood.

    Camphor laurel can be good too, but it’s variable.

    Avoid some soft timbers however. Western red cedar, for example, is what I call spongy/stringy and is awful to carve. Pine and Oregon are terrible.

    Once you have basic techniques under control, you can progress to a somewhat harder but more characterful timber. My favourites are Burmese teak, mahogany and basswood.

    I used to buy Jelutong at Matthews Timber, which is somewhere near St Marys.
    Apologies for unnoticed autocomplete errors.

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